Introduction: SmartCash: Easier Life
First of all I would let it be known that this project was made by:
-Oriol García Martín
-Alexander J. Magnusson Amorós (publishing, aka SuperPollo)
-Martí Solà Planagumà
-Gerard Vallverdú Mercade
It has been of common acordance to be published by Alexander in the name of the team. Without further ado, let's begin.
Reading this sentence means you want to build your own SmartCash. Either that or you want to know precisely how it is made and have access to the files and calculations. In our official site you can find all the information you may need.
Therefore, here you will see a summary and collection of the essential steps.
What is SmartCash and its purpose?
SmartCash is a euro coin sorter, storage, counter and change return machine.
Its purpose is to make the cash out, from local or small businesses, easier. At the same time it attracts customers in order to try the machine.
Step 1: Acquire the BOM
Take a look at the list of materials and components needed from our website or the BOM.
Since all the work made from the SmartCash team to optimize the designs doesn't need to be done again you may download the .pdf, .prt, .stl, .step files from the link and save yourself the hassle.
Attachments
Step 2: Find Some Machine Tooling
Some of the parts from the earlier step can only be made with specific manufacture machines, like 3D printer or CNC machine.
Find a makerspace, university or workshop where you can manufacture all the downloaded parts. Next cut everything to dimensions using those machines.
We recommend you use a machine with high precision, like CNC since it is very important in order to make the machine work properly. A bad tolerance may affect the behaviour of the coins, resulting in a malfunction.
Step 3: Start With the Base
As with the houses, we start building the foundation. Get yourself the base you have already cut and attach the 4 threaded rods. These will serve as a guide for all the layers to be held later on. Make sure the nuts are tightly secured and the rods are as straight as you can get them to be. Before moving to the next step, remember to put the spacing tube so the layer coming will lay at the same height.
Over the base goes the slope that will drive the coins to the exit, start attaching one side and move to the back and the other side. Use hot glue to assemble. The design is thought to fit with each wall and the base, so it should be pretty straight-forward. Finally attach the front panel using two M3 screws and some hot glue.
Now would be the best time to build your arduino, motor driver and PCB to the base, as later will get complicated to fix it correctly. On the other hand, the pin connections will be a harder task so you can leave all the boards out to make the pin connections not as tedious, and later fix it to the base using stand-offs.
No matter what, the LCD and keypad go to the front panel. The design provided alread has a fit for the lcd screen and the cable of the keypad. Some glue can be used to additionally hold it together. The keypad has a sticky surface on its back to mount it. The cables should travel to the back sorounding the slope walls. This way they won't disturb the coins.
Step 4: Stepper Motor Layer
Grab the stepper support layer and 3 screws, 3 tubes and 6 nuts to assemble the stepper mototr to it's base. Depending on your stepper, this assembly will vary. If the height of the stepper turns out to be different, you will have to modify the separation tubes accordingly.
Once the stepper is mounted, grab the entire layer and pass it through the four threaded rods. Try to lower it from each side at the same time to avoid it from getting stuck mid-way. Once the stepper plate lays comfortably over the hollow tubes, pull the motors cable towards the back in direction to one of the rods. Using this path won't distrub the coins falling. Use some glue gun to secure the cable to the bottom of the layer. Feel free to use other cable management options
Step 5: Individual Coin Pusher
The images talk for themselves once you have got all the pieces cut.
Put the first disc with rectangular cut in the perimeter and place the triangle pieces on top. Next the "pushers" for each part to be used. On top the layer with holes for the pusher to move and the tube to sit comfortably enough. Over that put the last layer with slightly bigger holes. This ensures that the layer hold the tube correctly and no coin will fall outside.
Now it is a matter of joining this "sandwich" layer with some screws, washers and self-locking nuts.
Step 6: Adding the Servo Motor
Step 7: Tube and DC Motor Holder
Step 8: DC Axis and Coin Selector Layer
Step 9: DC Axis Extension and Entrance
Step 10: Finnish Up and Ready for Test
Now you only need to fasten the top with some nuts and washers.
It is crucial for the machine to be held strongly enough making it sturdy.
Once we got it like this, the cables should connect according to the schematics found in our website.
Attachments
Step 11: Outside Enclosure
This can be considered an optional step, but we thought it would look nicer and help hide the cable mess.
With the aluminum sheets cut you use rivets to join each wall. To make the curvature and be able to follow the machine design, one of the members (Gerard) used rivets too to hold the form while bending. As we are using aluminum there's not a huge amount of strength needed to do this.